As president of the San Bernardino County Safety Employees Benefit Association, Jim Erwin used the union’s political-action committee to bolster his clout and launder campaign contributions from a powerful Rancho Cucamonga developer, according to Grand Jury testimony.

Erwin, who was president of the San Bernardino County Safety Employees Benefit Association from 1997 until 2005, successfully campaigned to increase union members’ contributions to the political- action committee, SEBA PAC, from 50 cents to $20 a month.

In addition, Erwin used the PAC to funnel campaign contributions for Colonies Partners LP, a consortium of investors for development projects in which Jeff Burum is a co-managing partner, according to more than 2,700 pages of Grand Jury transcripts released last week.

The testimony detailed the relationship between Erwin and Burum before the county’s landmark $102 million legal settlement with the developer in 2006. It led to a 29-count felony indictment in May against Erwin, Burum, Supervisor Gary Ovitt’s former chief of staff Mark Kirk and former county Supervisor Paul Biane. It alleged conspiracy, bribery and conflict of interest, among other charges.

All four defendants deny the charges.

Colonies Partners contributed $425,000 to the PAC over three years. And those contributions grew steadily over that three-year period, according to the California Secretary of State’s Office.

In 2003-04, the developer contributed $75,000 to the PAC. In 2005-06, it contributed $100,000, and in 2007-08, Colonies made two contributions – one for $150,000 and another for $100,000.

Michael Eagleson, the chief of labor negotiations for SEBA, said during his testimony before the Grand Jury in April that Erwin told him the intent bringing more money to the PAC was to increase his power and influence in the political arena.

“In your experience with Mr. Erwin, while he was at SEBA and had control over the PAC, did he ever discuss with you the value of having such a large PAC and what could be done with it?” prosecutor Lewis Cope asked Eagleson during the Grand Jury proceedings.

“If people know you have a lot of money, they won’t upset you,” Eagleson said.

Matt Brown, the former chief of staff to Biane, testified that Erwin had told him that he and Burum had an arrangement: if SEBA supported a candidate Burum supported, Burum would contribute money to SEBA, and SEBA would then contribute money to the political candidate.

William Abernathie, SEBA’s former president and a member of the union for 32 years, said the donation-laundering allegations are flat-out false. He said all of SEBA’s contributions to political candidates were approved by the union’s board of directors and that there was never any quid pro quo.

“There was never a time when somebody gave us money and in turn we gave it to a candidate,” Abernathie said. “Whenever there was a decision like that, it was made by the board of directors.”

But if the allegations are true, it is a quintessential example of laundering campaign contributions that “flies in the face of the law,” said Jessica Levinson, a professor of government ethics and political reform at Loyola Law School.

“All around it’s such a disappointing and offensive tale of badly behaving politicians and badly behaving donors,” Levinson said. “It just looks like a systematic use of money and PACs to peddle influence and get access.”

The allegations are similar to a criminal case in which Supervisor Neil Derry stood accused of laundering a $5,000 campaign contribution through a political-action committee controlled by former Assessor Bill Postmus.

Under a plea agreement with the state Attorney General’s Office, Derry pleaded guilty last week to a misdemeanor charge of failing to report a campaign contribution in exchange for two felony counts – perjury and filing a false document – being dropped.

Abernathie said the increase in SEBA member dues to the SEBA PAC were included in an amendment to the union’s contract and approved by the membership. The intent was not to bolster Erwin’s political clout, but the union’s clout.

“In order to have your voice heard, you need to be able to spend political action money,” Abernathie said Tuesday. “The intent was to increase SEBA’s involvement in state and local political-action issues.”

He said that at the time the union approved the increase in dues to the PAC, membership was around 2,500. The increase was incremental over a period of years, Abernathie said.

The Grand Jury’s indictment stems from the county’s landmark $102 million settlement with Colonies Partners LP in November 2006, which ended nearly five years of legal battle over flood-control improvements at the developer’s 434- acre residential and commercial development in Upland.

The settlement, prosecutors said, was tainted by blackmail and bribery.

Postmus, who was chairman of the Board of Supervisors at the time, voted in favor of the settlement along with Biane and Ovitt. He pleaded guilty in late March to felony charges in the case and a separate criminal case in which he was accused of running a political operation out of the Assessor’s Office at taxpayer expense.

Under a plea bargain, Postmus has agreed to turn state’s evidence and testify against the defendants at trial in exchange for reduced charges.

Most commonly referred to as SEBA, the organization is the most powerful labor union in the county, representing more than 3,100 sheriff’s deputies and district attorney’s investigators. The union also represents coroner’s investigators, welfare-fraud investigators, probation officers and specialized fire services.

Joe Nelson is an award-winning investigative reporter who has worked for The Sun since November 1999. He started as a crime reporter and went on to cover a variety of beats including courts and the cities of Colton, Highland and Grand Terrace. He has covered San Bernardino County since 2009. Nelson is a graduate of California State University Fullerton. In 2014, he completed a fellowship at Loyola Law School's Journalist Law School program.

Join the Conversation

We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. Although we do not pre-screen comments, we reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions.

If you see comments that you find offensive, please use the “Flag as Inappropriate” feature by hovering over the right side of the post, and pulling down on the arrow that appears. Or, contact our editors by emailing moderator@scng.com.